The Darwism of "BIG Media"

As the world becomes more and more technologically interconnected through various social networking and micro-blogging services like Twitter, the traditional concept of receiving news from trusted sources has migrated from the so-called "big media" news organizations, and has been reassigned to local and regionally known bloggers and tweeple (individuals that use Twitter).

CNN, like all major news media organizations has but one primary purpose, and that is to report the news. Social Media channels like Twitter, Plurk, and Facebook are meant to allow individuals to connect, network, and speak their minds in an open and un-moderated channel. Integrating these two concepts may prove fatal to both agendas.

The problem facing the big media organizations is that it is very difficult to draw the line between having one sided broadcasts, and being too transparent to your viewers by allowing the untrained public to dictate the opinions and news to the viewing audience. Another heavy barrier to true transparency is the fact that in reality, news organizations like CNN filter through each and every comment while cherry picking only those comments and statements which coincide with CNN's political and social points of view.

News organizations are businesses, and advertisers can be considered sponsors. These sponsors (like Starbucks for CNN) expect certain levels of content consistency and control over what is broadcast. Therefore, it's unlikely that any news organization will ever be able to provide a true level of transparency and follower comment integration as pure SM channels such as Twitter and Facebook can provide to their audiences.

Now to clarify my stance on the integration of social media and big media; I want to make truly clear that I support and encourage any media outlet to integrate social media strategies into their operations, but I do not feel that traditional television viewers are interested in having the opinions of individual tweeple narrated to them via CNN reporters. It's all a matter of perception, and CNN for example is integrating social media strategies in a way that I feel is hurtful to their true purpose, which is to report the news.

There should be more of a separation between the televised broadcast, and the online interactions made between CNN and their followers. If individual anchors or reporters want to build their follower base, they should simply display their Twitter usernames on the screen, but don't sit there and tell us to follow you. Actions and requests like that remind me of the days back on the playground on your first day in school, begging to make new friends and not feel like a complete outcast.

Big media like CNN should really stick to keeping their SM conversations on SM channels, while allowing their staff to continue to provide a two-way transparent conversation with CNN fans. However, I don't feel that it's beneficial to showcase cherry picked comments from Twitter followers to share on televised broadcasts, especially since only a small percentage of the US population even understands and uses such technology.

If news organizations truly want to showcase true viewer opinions, then they should follow the CurrentTV model and display the comments LIVE on their broadcast at the bottom of the screen, but only after developing some highly efficient filtering protocols (for language, not content). This would allow for the truest levels of transparency, and would allow for a truer form of News Media and Social Media integration, though I still doubt the value of such an integration.

I personally, like most of my colleagues that understand and use Social Media technologies, tend to expect my Social Media conversations to remain in the SM realm, while keeping my real world news, activities, and personality in the "real world."

Continued censored integration of SM channels and traditional news broadcasting channels will, in my personal opinion, expedite the continuing degradation of today's news organizations (Big Media Darwinism).

People like to gather the opinions of their friends and family, but they still need a TRUSTED news source that still practices the key fundamentals to true journalism: Truth, Research, Integrity, and Knowledge. Don't allow Big Media Darwinism to kill the true purpose of American Journalism and News...